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Candidate holds press conference in response to mailer

October 27, 2016 • Comments Off on Candidate holds press conference in response to mailer

Mike Nicastro, Democratic candidate for the 31st District State Senate seat, held a press conference this morning in response to a mailer that attempted to link him to Governor Dannel Malloy.

The mailer was sent earlier this week, reading, “A vote for Mike Nicastro is a vote for Dan Malloy” on the front side. The back side of the mailer read, “Governor Malloy and Mike Nicastro’s tax hiking, job killing policies will hurt families and kill jobs.”

Nicastro said the mailer depicting a photo of him standing next to Malloy was “photoshopped,” and was taken from a photo of him from Plainville’s Hot Air Balloon Festival. Nicastro said the mailer fails to make any factual connections between Malloy and him, except for their party affiliation.

“That’s about as much association as the good governor and I have together,” said Nicastro, who later added that he has never had any involvement with the governor. “If there is anyone who has a track record of actually going nose-to-nose with the governor, it’s me.”

Nicastro said he felt disappointed by the mailer, calling it a “scare tactic.”

He added that the Senate Republicans issued the mailer.

“This is a cooperative effort. This is not an independent expenditure. This is a coordinated expenditure, which means Henri has to approve it,” said Nicastro. “This is not telling the voters what you can do for them.”

Martin’s campaign team said it did not pay for this mailer, and did not know anything about it.

“We have not known anything about this,” said Martin’s campaign manager, Jeff Caggiano. “There has been no coordination with the Senate Republicans.”

Caggiano added that Martin has never released a negative ad against his opponents.

“Henri Martin is completely against negative mail ads,” said Caggiano.

The press conference came just a day after Dr. Bill Petit, Republican candidate for the General Assembly 22nd district, held a press conference to address an ad that ran within his voting district, reading, “Stop Donald Trump and Republican William Petit’s attack on women and families. Vote on 11/8.”

“We joined [State Representative] Betty Boukus [D-Plainville] in condemning that kinds of things that happened to Bill Petit, her opponent,” said Nicastro. “It’s just unacceptable kinds of campaigning.”

During his press conference, which took place at Bristol Democratic headquarters, Nicastro also challenged his opponent, Henri Martin (R-Incumbent) to a debate a week before Election Day to discuss state and local issues. He set a date of Tuesday, Nov. 1, 6 p.m. at Manross Library.

“We’ll let the public ask questions,” said Nicastro. “Let’s talk about the issues. Let’s figure out a way to save and help Connecticut.”

In an e-mail sent to Nicastro’s campaign manager, Martin’s campaign team did not accept the debate challenge, but thanked the candidate and his team for their consideration.

“Our campaign has accepted and participated in several independently moderated debates and forums,” said Caggiano in his response to Nicastro’s debate challenge. “With 12 days to go in the race, we feel it is best to take our message directly to the voters and get our vote out.”